African America - Acknowledging the “new” diaspora

Africans and African-Americans have always had a delicate and intricate relationship. More and more Africans are coming to the United States, and these “distant cousins” are forced, at the very least, to acknowledge each other.

This acknowledgement, however, is not translating into a family reunion. African and African-American social relations are dysfunctional at best and hostile at worst. Tensions between Africans and African-Americans in the United States promise to reach the boiling point. In fact, there have been random cases of conflict between African and African-American students in American middle and high schools, as well as workplace conflicts over the hiring and promotion of one group over the other.

Africans are entering American cities in greater numbers every year. In 1989, more than 25,000 Africans immigrated to America. In 2001 the number of African immigrants more than doubled to 53,000. More than 75 percent of African immigrants in the United States today, in fact, arrived after 1985. These numbers do not include the more than 10,000 African students who enter U.S. universities every year. Many historians estimate that more Africans have immigrated to the United States since 1980 than came to the United States during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade. These Africans are changing the face of African America in much the same way West Indians did generations earlier.

Contact between Africans and African-Americans is shadowed by stereotypes. Africans are seen as poor and uncivilized, or smart and arrogant. African men are seen as domineering and African women as passive and accepting of abuse at the hands of oppressive African men. African-Americans are seen as lazy, obsessed with racism and lacking a culture. African-American women are seen as loose, while the men are seen as violent criminals. The Nigerian slang word, “akata,” which Americans were first exposed to in the film Sugar Hill, is used by some West Africans to refer to African-Americans. Roughly translated, it is a derogatory term meaning “savage,” “slave,” “captive” or (as in Sugar Hill) “cotton picker.”

Still, outside of intermarriage and the many friendships that have been formed, there are important areas of cooperation between the two groups. While Africans have yet to become involved in large numbers in domestic issues (police brutality, affirmative action), African-Americans have a long history of championing African causes. Organizations such as Africa Action, Africare, The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) and TransAfrica are all African-American organizations that employ and work with Africans on issues impacting Africa. R&B artist Akon, a Senegalese, has made a name for himself in an African-American-dominated genre. Hip-hop artists such as Common and Wycleff Jean have collaborated with African musicians, linking hip-hop artists in the diaspora to those in Africa.

Overall, however, contacts between Africans and African-Americans are often complex and multilayered. Bicultural children, those born of one African and one African-American parent, often tie the two communities together, translating the culture of one group to the other.

The case of bicultural children and young African immigrants brings up the important issue of identity. For the African-American community, identity has been an important part of self-determination. Traditionally, African-Americans have been thought of as those whose ancestors came to America via the transatlantic slave trade. African immigration is now challenging that identity in ways West Indian immigrants did not. Today’s African-Americans may not necessarily have a history rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Second-generation African immigrants and bicultural children have a different history and culture, but a number of them identify themselves, at least partly, as African-American. Some of them have never been to Africa. They look, sound, act, and, in some cases, feel, more like African-Americans than they do Africans.

As more Africans arrive on America’s shores, African-Americans must deal with the implications of what researchers refer to as the “new diaspora” and “African Africans.” Groups such as the NAACP and the Urban League have begun to at least acknowledge the presence of African immigrants. That acknowledgement must translate into an inclusion of their issues in the African-American agenda. African immigrants have the potential of reaching a level of influence similar to that of other immigrant groups in domestic and foreign policy.

Msia Kibona Clark was born in Tanzania of Tanzanian and African-American parents. Raised in the United States, she currently is a Ph.D. candidate and Sasakawa Fellow at Howard University. This article first appeared in Pazambuka News.